BCCI Confirms Date And Venue For IPL 2026 Auction

The Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) confirmed that the Indian Premier League 2026 auction will take place on 16th December at the Etihad Arena in Abu Dhabi. All the 10 IPL franchises on Saturday announced the list of retained and released players ahead of the mini auction. Ruturaj Gaikwad will lead CSK in the upcoming season, despite Sanju Samson joining the five-time champions as part of a trade deal. In what came as a big shock, Andre Russell was released by the Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR). The three-time champions also released last year's big money buy Venkatesh Iyer (Rs 23.75 crore). Meanwhile, CSK offloaded Sri Lanka pacer Matheesha Pathirana, having retained him for Rs 13 crore ahead of the IPL 2025 mega auction. Australian powerhitter Glenn Maxwell was also let go by IPL 2025 runners-up Punjab Kings.

Kolkata Knight Riders and Chennai Super Kings are expected to trigger intense bidding wars with the best purses among the 10 teams at the next month's mini auction.

KKR enter the auction with a purse of Rs 64.30 crore after releasing non-performing assets in Venkatesh and Russell (Rs 12 crore), while CSK, despite trading Samson, have freed up Rs 40 crore by letting go of a host of players.

The Knight Riders will be looking to rebuild their squad from scratch, while CSK are likely to revamp their bowling attack and may attempt to buy back Matheesha Pathirana or target Ben Stokes to restore balance, provided he is available after the Ashes.

KKR have released Quinton de Kock, Moeen Ali and Anrich Nortje, while retaining a core group of players, which includes Ajinkya Rahane, Manish Pandey, Sunil Narine, Varun Chakaravarthy, Rinku Singh, Harshit Rana and Angkrish Raghuvanshi.

They have 13 slots available, including six overseas slots.

On the other hand, CSK have released big names like New Zealand's Devon Conway, Rachin Ravindra, R Ashwin (retired), Deepak Hooda, Sam Curran and Matheesha Pathrirana.

(With PTI Inputs)